Saturday, 1 March 2014

Now that any confusion regarding Tsumugi's gender has been cleared up, everything is back to normal for Kirisaki's bodyguard... well, as normal as it can be when you're a gun-wielding hit-man looking to uncover the truth about your charge's relationship.

The trouble is, Tsumugi isn't feeling too well - her heart races, her face flushes and her mind goes blank, but only when a certain person is in the vicinity. Whatever could it be? Unsurprisingly asking Chitoge and Claude doesn't provide any useful answers, while other female students just get overly excitable and blabber randomly when she asks their advice, leaving it to Onodera and Ruri to provide the answer - maybe she's in love? To Tsumugi this seems like a ludicrous idea, and an entirely unpalatable one given her position and that of Raku, meaning that the whole prospect leaves her (quite literally) banging her head against a brick wall.

Not only is this whole state of affairs causing Tsumugi some problems, it's also opened up an entirely new can of worms for Kirisaki. As these discussions about love and whether that is or isn't what's ailing Tsumugi develop, she refers to her master's first love and the promise she made to a boy her age ten years previously. Reminded of these events but decidedly fuzzy on their details, Chitoge delves into her past via a diary written by her five year-old self which tells the story of her meetings with a boy who sounds oddly familiar, and tailing off with talk of a promise and a key left hidden within the diary's pages...

I think the lack of originality within Nisekoi's story is well-established by this point, and this week's episode only pushes it deeper into full-on harem territory along those lines. However, the series continues to show its comedy chops sufficiently often to be fun, and indeed this episode once again nails its humour, be it visual, physical or verbal, time and again to continue to be greater than the sum of its parts. I do worry that its growing cast and harem may dilute its sense of fun, but for now there seems to be no sign of this happening thankfully.